CaseLaw
Salik V. Idris (2014) CLR 5(n) (SC)
Judgement delivered on May 9th 2014
Brief
Facts
The genesis of this appeal started as an inter party dispute on the candidate the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) nominated to contest the election for the Dala Federal Constituency seat of the House of Representatives in the General Election which took place on 21st April, 2007. After the conduct of the primaries, the ANPP forwarded the name of Alhassan Uba Idris (now 1st respondent) to INEC who was cleared and his name published to contest the election which he won. The appellant believed he won the highest number of votes at the primaries and felt short-changed on what the Party did and challenged the action of the Party at the Federal High Court, Abuja in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/70/2007. The Court entered judgment in his favour.
Meanwhile the General Election had taken place and when the results for the Dala Federal Constituency was collated by Tijani Abdu Chinade, the Returning officer for Dala Federal Constituency, the 1st respondent who garnered 51,603 (Fifty One Thousand, Six Hundred and Three) votes was set to be declared the winner of the election. It was at this juncture that the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Kano State called the attention of the Returning Officer for Dala Federal Constituency to the judgment of the Federal High Court. He cancelled the name of the 1st respondent from the result sheet and then wrote the name of the appellant and proceeded to declare him as the winner of the election. Following this development, the 1st respondent and the ANPP filed a Petition No. EPT/KNS/HR/23/07 before the National Assembly Election Tribunal of Kano State. The petition was dismissed. The petitioners appealed against the decision to the Court of Appeal which reversed the Tribunal's judgment. It nullified the election as well as the certificate of return if any that was issued to the 1st respondent and declared that the 1st petitioner/Appellant, Alhassan Uba Idris is the candidate that met the requirement of the law and scored the highest number of votes cast at the election and was declared the winner and returned elected into the Dala Federal Constituency of the House of Representatives. It directed the 2nd, 3rd and 4th respondents to forthwith issue a certificate of return to the 1st petitioner.
The appellant has appealed to this Court and even though he is aware that the life of the National Assembly to which the 2007 election relates has been spent since 2011; he nevertheless is of the view that the appeal is neither stale nor academic and can still be determined by this Court because it is a pre-election matter which was filed in 2009 when the life of the National Assembly was still extant.